To my wife, Sam, and our pride and joys Mia and Corey, and to the memory of my mother, Julie, and my brother, Craig.
by Steve Hansen
In the early days after I took over as Wales coach, I think Martyn – or Ginge as I know him – may have thought I was an absolute so-and-so, to put it mildly. But, in the end, I think he started to understand what I was about. There were times when I didn’t play him and I know he was really disappointed. But these decisions were about looking after him and trying to lengthen his career, because he wasn’t a big man.
Early on, I thought Martyn found things difficult because of his physical stature. But the Wales conditioning coaches Andrew Hore and Mark Bennett helped him produce more consistent performances, as his body became able to take the punishment that he put it through playing in such an involved position.
Ginge was a young man who desperately wanted Wales to be good and he wanted to be good himself. Probably, early on, he wasn’t sure how he could do that. But he was willing and able to change certain things and he was always the first to try something new. First and foremost, his priority was the team. Martyn cared about the other guys. At times we wanted him to be the captain, but it wasn’t something that sat easy on his shoulders. He would rather be a doer than an actual captain. In the end he became one of the leaders within the team. He became one of the main lieutenants and provided great support for his captain, which was role he was born for. It’s the one he liked doing and it suited his game as well.
While Martyn’s not a big man, he’s certainly got a big heart and he plays true to it. He also plays with a lot of skill and he’s a tremendous servant of Welsh rugby.
I enjoyed being around him, I enjoyed coaching him and I enjoyed his humour. It was a privilege to coach him and it remains a privilege to watch him play.
I would like to thank the following for their help and support in the preparation of this book:
My wife Sam for her patience, encouragement and all those long hours of child care; my stepdad Paul for everything he’s done over the years and especially for those meticulously maintained scrapbooks which have been a priceless source of information; all the rest of my and Sam’s family without whom none of this would have been possible; John Blake Publishing for giving me the opportunity to tell my story and particularly Clive Hebard and Michelle Signore for their work on this book; Mark Spoors and Louise Hewitt at Big Red Management; Huw Evans for all the great photos; Cardiff RFC historian Alan Evans, Pontypridd RFC and Cardiff Blues for help in compiling my career stats; Wales team manager Alan Phillips for his invaluable advice; all the great players I’ve been privileged to play with and against during my career; and last but not least my co-author Simon Thomas of the Western Mail, for helping to turn around this book in record time.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword
Acknowledgements
introduction: the seven rides again
1 the red rollercoaster
2 losing the ones you love
3 the valley commandos
4 the battle of brive
5 blue (and black) is the colour
6 the three muskateers
7 the reluctant captain
8 the great redeemer
9 grannygate grief
10 flogging a dead lion
11 striking a deal
12 hello mr hansen
13 the world is watching
14 we’re on the way to slam-arillo
15 shunned by sir clive
16 brought to book
17 ruddockgate revisited
18 time to turn selector
career statistics
About the Author
Copyright
Even if I’d scripted it myself, my return to international rugby couldn’t have been any more perfect. It was a decision that could have backfired on me badly, because there’s an old saying in sport that you should never go back. But, as it turned out, it proved to be one of the best calls of my life, as it brought me a second Six Nations Grand Slam and a series of personal landmarks along the way.
I had announced that I was quitting Test rugby the day after Wales were knocked out of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, but in truth I’d made the decision some time before that. Ever since going on the British Lions tour of New Zealand in 2005, I’d been finding it increasingly difficult to juggle all the different aspects of my life, what with my day job with the Cardiff Blues, international rugby, my family and trying to lay the foundations for a future career in the financial industry.
In particular, I was very aware of the amount of time I was spending away from my family. I’ve got two children - my six-year-old daughter Mia and my son, Corey Craig, who is just under three. With me spending so much time away with Wales, it was putting a big burden on my wife, Sam. She has always been amazing and so supportive and I thought it was just fair that I should be around a lot more.
I also wasn’t getting any younger so, at 32, I made the decision that the World Cup in the autumn of 2007 was going to be the end of the international line for me. Unfortunately it wasn’t the swan song I had been hoping for, as we crashed out at the group stage with a shock defeat to Fiji.
Yet I’d made my mind up and there was no turning back – and for the first few weeks I was content that I’d made the right decision. But, gradually, the doubts started to creep into my mind.
It was when I went to watch Wales’ first match after the World Cup, against South Africa at the Millennium Stadium, that I really first began to question what I had done. Myself and Wales’ World Cup captain Gareth Thomas had been invited to go down to watch the game by Prince William, whose cup the teams were playing for. We had met him a couple of times before and when you get an invite like that it’s an opportunity you jump at.
So I went down just really looking forward to spending the day there. We sat next to the Prince in the formal dinner beforehand, with all the dignitaries, and it was a great experience. But it was when I went out to watch the game and saw the boys run out that I started to think about what I had done.
My